Franco Corelli and Mirella Freni -- not as Don José and Micaëla, alas, but as
Gounod's Roméo and Juliette, at the Met in 1969 (photo by Louis Melancon)
MICAËLA: Your mother was leaving chapel with me,
and that's when, while kissing me --
"You'll go," she said to me, "to the city;
the route isn't long, once in Seville,
you'll search out my son, my José, my child.
And you'll tell him that his mother
dreams night and day about her absent one,
that she regrets and that she hopes,
that she forgives and that she waits.
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell him;
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to him."
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother?
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother!
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
José, I pass it on to you, as I promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage. etc.
DON JOSÉ [to himself]: Who knows of what demon
I was going to be the prey!
[Collected again] Even from afar my mother protects me,
and this kiss that she sends me,
[with élan] this kiss that she sends me
wards off danger and saves her son.
MICAËLA [like recitative -- animatedly]:
What demon? what danger?
I don't really understand. What does that mean?
DON JOSÉ: Nothing, nothing!
Let's speak of you, our messenger;
you're going to return to our land?
MICAËLA: Yes, this very evening . . .
tomorrow I'll see your mother.
DON JOSÉ: You'll see her! Well then, you'll tell her --
[with spirit that her son loves her and reveres her,
and that he repents today.
He wishes that back there his mother may be happy with him
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell her,
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to her.
MICAËLA [simply]: Yes, I promise you . . .
on behalf of her son,
I will pass it on as I've promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage, etc.
with Franco Corelli (t), Don José; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA, recorded November 1963
with Jon Vickers (t), Don José; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded July and September 1969
And finally, um, a 53-year-old Micaëla?
with Neil Shicoff (t), Don José; Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988
by Ken
When last we convened, the immediate plan called for further consideration of three roles that (in addition to Nannetta in Verdi's
Falstaff, which we've already considered as much as we're going to) figured importantly in the burgeoning international career of Mirella Freni: Micaëla in Bizet's
Carmen, Adina in Donizetti's
Elixir of Love, and inevitably her early-career signature role, Mimì in Puccini's
La Bohème.
The most fun, certainly, would (or rather
will) be Adina, because, while the role may not have figured all that prominently in her career, her assumption of it unleashed an opera-long explosion of sheer vocal joy. But I thought we needed to hold off on that, at least to consider Micaëla, because, as I noted last time, it's such an extraordinary thing to have a singer achieve international sizzle status off of what we normally think of as second-line (if not third-line) lyric-soprano roles like Nannetta and Micaëla. As I said before, other future stars have sung one or both of these roles on their way up, but I can't think of another soprano who was sprung to stardom by either.
Falstaff, to begin with, is such a resolutely ensemble piece that you wouldn't think Nannetta, so carefully threaded by Boito and Verdi through the opera's Merry Wives scenes, before being let loose in the magical final scene in Windsor Park as the Queen of the Fairies, the wives' secret weapon for the tormenting of Falstaff, could be that kind of attention-getter. My theory is that Nannetta embodies the most magical of the many strands of magic woven into the opera: the love and hope invested by the near-octogenarian Verdi in the children, Nannetta and Fenton.
Ostensibly Falstaff is "about" Sir John's grotesque attempt at wooing the Mistresses Ford and Page and the comeuppance delivered by these Merry Wives of Windsor. But in the end, it seems to me, the really important thing that happens is Alice Ford's triumphant thwarting of her husband's monstrous plan to marry their daughter off to the wildly inappropriate Dr. Cajus. There are a lot of reasons why I return so frequently to the 1963 RCA-Decca Falstaff recording conducted so wonderfully by Sir Georg Solti, but certainly one indelible attractions is the performances of Freni and Alfredo Kraus as Nannetta and Fenton.
NOW, AS FOR MICAËLA
